Need a helpful placemat to support your advocacy work? Check out Showing Up for Racial Justice‘s handy discussion guide!
Tag: racial justice
Apology
I came across this poem and felt it so deeply, I couldn’t help but share it.
Sorry!
An apology from Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) to humanity
We are sorry for everything
That we have caused humanity to suffer from.
Sorry for Algebra and the letter X.
Sorry for all the words we throw at you;
Amber, candy, chemistry, cotton, giraffe, hazard,….
Does Advocacy Stop at Marriage?
Meredith Talusan offers her take on Jennicet Gutiérrez’s interruption of President Obama’s speech for Pride month. She offers a scathing critique of the administration’s deliberate dismissal of critical, life-threatening issues that trans folks experience in America.
“As I watched Jennicet Gutiérrez open her mouth to interrupt President Obama’s Pride Month reception address Wednesday night – because, she said, as an undocumented trans woman she couldn’t celebrate while LGBT detainees are being abused in US detention centers – I thought, That could have been me.”
Wake Up, It’s Christmas! (plus 35 links to make you a better ally)
When I opened my Facebook today, one of my close friends had posted this on my wall:
“Wake up, it’s Christmas!”
It made me laugh, and a little teary, because really it did feel like that – that exquisite breath of hope and desire hovering over the day. My darling queer nephew woke us up this morning, poking his head in to whisper “Did you hear!?” We grabbed our phones to see, excited….I had visions of tiptoeing down the hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of Queer Saint Nick, and as we peeked around the corner of our virtual living room, we found this:
Supreme Court Rules Love is Love!
I’m not gonna lie, there’ve been a lot of tears. I’ve been obsessed with scrolling through my feed today, seeing all the pictures and posts, all the kisses and rings and declarations of love. It’s a heady thing, to have a feed literally filled with nothing but sunshine. It’s a big deal.
I’ve vacillated mightily today. I’ve cried tears of joy and rage. I’ve imagined a thousand weddings and mentally designed two thousand rhinestoned gowns, all while cursing the proprietary and historically oppressive institution. I’ve been excited, then furious with myself for being excited about something so freaking stupid.
It’s stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The government denied civil contracts based on assigned sex, and then after decades of sweat, tears, blood, and lives, the government finally decided that maybe sex is not a legitimate reason to grant or deny the associated benefits of that contract. I’m furious that it took so much and so long to get something accomplished that’s not even close to the biggest issue in my community. What kind of idiot am I to jump up and down for this? You don’t get cookies for doing what you’re supposed to do.
Jennicet Gutierrez calls out to President Obama
And how can I cry tears of joy when there’s so much suffering? How can I throw sunshine to Obama after he shut down Jennicet Gutiérrez’s cry for help earlier this week? How can I be excited about the increasingly widespread acceptance of trans representation in pop culture, when there’s little activity in areas that actually impact the lived experiences of trans folks themselves?
How can I not be excited? How can I not feel a little victorious, a little hopeful? How can I not cry when I think about Chloe’s little niece, who’ll be 
present at her (other) aunt’s now-legally-sanctioned wedding next Friday, never knowing a world where that wouldn’t be a thing? (I admit, I also cried when I imagine that baby showing her grandkids pictures in 60 years…”your aunts got married a week after the laws changed!”)
It’s a foothold, though. I think it can mean more than just marriage. Having SCOTUS-sanctioned legal protection in one area will make it easier to get it in other areas. Marriage equality can be another tool in the toolbox, but we can’t be fooled into thinking that marriage was the battle. It wasn’t. If we could spend the amount of money, time, energy, and meme-making on these other issues as we did on marriage equality, maybe we could make some progress that would feel more meaningful for the people in our community who are suffering.
So I guess I’m gonna accept that this day and this issue will always bring mixed feelings. It’s paradoxical, but not untrue, to be excited and angry. I can be jubilant, and still heartbroken. So I guess I cry, and let the tears mean what they mean.
So now that it’s done, here’s a new To-Do list (it’s actually the same to-do list, but now we’re less distracted):
Read this overview of LGBTQ issues, and this one.
Become familiar with issues around economic injustice and financial hardships in LGBT communities.
Learn more about the reality of oppression and violence in Trans people’s lives (also this, and this).
Be a pen-pal for LGBQ and Trans people who are incarcerated.
Learn about and get involved with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
Help out with the Trans Life Line, the Trevor Project and the GLBT Hotline.
Learn more about the Trans and Queer immigration crisis.
Read this report about LGBTQ youth in America, this one about youth homelessness, and this one about violence against queer youth.
Learn about violence and hate crimes against LGBTQ people.
Get involved with LGBTQ issues in healthcare (also this and this) and in mental health care (and this).
Learn more about how racial injustice impacts the LGBTQ community.
If you’re in a caregiving or legal profession, read this about how to write about transfolks in a respectful way.
Remember when Obama won, and there were a ton of asshats who went around proclaiming racism dead in America? This is the same thing. Don’t be fooled into believing marriage equality means heterosexism is dead in America. It’s not.
Bear Witness
Today my heart is (still) broken for the Charleston community, and for our greater national community. My heart is broken that so many of our American people are still marginalized and oppressed, even after all the work we’ve done. I’m devastated that this happened, and even more devastated that it just keeps happening. I don’t want to feel like this.
I don’t want to see the picture of that young man whose path took him to the doors of that church. I don’t want to read his terrible manifesto. I don’t want to imagine how this man sat with those good people for a full hour before he killed them. I don’t want to know he even exists.
I don’t want to see the posts and comments from people I know who are minimizing or ignoring the role that racism plays in this incident, and in so many other similar incidents. I don’t want to witness more of this willful ignorance about racism and violence in America. I don’t want to hear about how he’s a “lone wolf;” how he is one bad apple in a sea of yummy ones (he isn’t).
I don’t want to read this article in which Felicia Sanders, who lost three family members in the shooting, describes her dead son as a hero. I don’t want to read the names of the people who died; I don’t want to know about who they were. I want them to be alive and well and to be comfortable knowing our paths might never cross. I don’t want to imagine the ripples of their loss, the sheer number of people suffering because of this.
I don’t want to read about the stupid confederate flag. I don’t want to read about how big businesses are having to use their influence to bring attention to the indefensible problems with government agencies displaying the flag. I don’t want to know that so many people are willing to look the other way, that there is still a vocal minority of conservatives that maintain power over this issue. I don’t want to feel this rage at the sudden media attention on this problem, after generations of activists have fought and died begging for someone in power to pay attention.
And let’s be real. I don’t have to. I could take those posts out of my feed. I could pretend it didn’t happen. I could scroll past, I could delete, I could skim and move on to the newest kitten gifs. There are so many people who can’t turn it off, who can’t escape the brutal daily reality of racism in America, and the fact that I can is a disgusting example of my own privilege as a white person. And that makes me sick too.
So what do I do with this?
I choose to bear witness.
To witness is passive. To bear witness is active. I walk toward my own discomfort and pain because I know it is nothing compared to others’. I willingly keep my eyes and ears open, even though I hate it, because these injustices deserve and demand to be witnessed – especially by white people. It is our moral obligation to witness and respond to this.
So I will bear witness. I will read the articles. I will look at the pictures. I will be sad every day. I will talk about it. I will write about it. I will listen. I will do my best to help others bear witness too. I will work to amplify the voices that are so often silenced.
The hashtag #saytheirnames has brought me to tears today, multiple times. So I cried. And said their names, out loud. Will you say them with me? It’s okay if you cry too.
Cynthia Hurd, 54
Susie Jackson, 87
Ethel Lance, 70
Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49
Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41
Tywanza Sanders, 26
Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74
Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45
Myra Thompson, 59
Bear witness, and share what you witness.
Kalief: In Memoriam
Jennifer Gonnerman delivers a beautiful rendering of a tormented life. After three years at Rikers without a trial, Kalief Browder has died by suicide.
“Ever since I’d met him, Browder had been telling me stories about having been abused by officers and inmates on Rikers. The stories were disturbing, but I did not fully appreciate what he had experienced until this past April when I obtained surveillance footage of an officer assaulting him and of a large group of inmates pummeling and kicking him. I sat next to Kalief while he watched these videos for the first time. Afterward, we discussed whether they should be published on The New Yorker’s Web site. I told him that it was his decision. He said to put them online.
He was driven by the same motive that led him to talk to me for the first time, a year earlier. He wanted the public to know what he had gone through, so that nobody else would have to endure the same ordeals. His willingness to tell his story publicly—and his ability to recount it with great insight—ultimately helped persuade Mayor Bill de Blasio to try to reform the city’s court system and end the sort of excessive delays that kept him in jail for so long.”
WoCSHN Responds to AASECT Awards
The membership and allies of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network respond to announcements of AASECT award winners:
“It is outrageous that a book with this history and an editor with this ethical approach to his work be given this award. How can AASECT make claims about increasing diversity and supporting under-represented communities while, in the same breath, rewarding this book? The message this sends is “we say we want diversity, but only on our terms.””
Not a Welfare Queen
Anna Gibson writes a piece introducing the myth of the welfare queen and the realities hidden behind that myth.
“What we find in impoverished communities are a number of Black women who work two to four jobs to keep food on the table, according to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. This lack of time limits the ability to actively apply and pursue higher education or at least finish an equivalency program such as a GED. The lack of education keeps them away from higher paying jobs and leads to them and their children being ceaselessly being mired in poverty.”
Included are links to more detailed analyses of this pernicious and politically effective lie and the cascading consequences of building policy that conflates and demonizes being Black and poor.
I’m Pissed Too
A solid read on maintaining allyship, by Hasira Asheuma.
“These intransigent forces would be ecstatic if I were to adopt the paradigm that informs me that he’s nothing but a privileged cracker menace that walks these fruited plains of America with the blood of my ancestors stained with each step. However, for either one of us to adopt these views we would have to conveniently ignore the history of black/brown justice movements in this country. We would be suffering from historical amnesia if we were to forget who fought along side us, paid heavy prices and sometimes sacrificed their lives. #blacklivesmatter”
Read the whole article here: “I’m Pissed Too!!” Acknowledging and Maintaining Our White Allies
In Defense of Safe Space
Aeman Ansari writes about the value and critical importance of safe spaces for marginalized peoples in response to a controversy that stormed social media after white students were asked to leave an event organized by Racialized Students Collective.
“It’s not just important, but it’s essential, for marginalized groups to have safe spaces on campus to engage with people who understand what they go through. Though this group is funded by Ryerson’s student union, it works to serve a particular group and a particular purpose. Many students at Ryerson have encountered racism in their life that is impossible to forget and many are exposed to discrimination on a daily basis. This group and these sort of events allow people of colour to lay bare their experiences and to collectively combat this societal ailment. These spaces are rare places in the world not controlled by individuals who have power, who have privilege.”
Dr. Karen McDowell 